


Return the Beast

by Raven_Song



Series: Gotham Fairy Tales [2]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Beauty and the Beast Elements, Fairy Tale Elements, Fairy Tale Retellings, Solomon Grundy is the beast, Tabitha Galavan is a badass, Tabitha Galavan is beauty, That's not how trauma works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-23 19:22:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17086238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raven_Song/pseuds/Raven_Song
Summary: Tabitha Galavan hides in what was formerly Cherry's club so she can kidnap Solomon Grundy and force Butch to remember her. Inspired by Beauty and the Beast.





	Return the Beast

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are greatly appreciated!

A woman ducked down the dingy alley, drawing her hood closer to her face. Splashing through a puddle, her heels clicked on the pavement with a sharp echo that turned the heads of the only other people in the alley. They held hands over a fire, mistrustful eyes following the woman as she breezed past them. Clearly, she didn’t belong here. She didn’t look anything like the bums she passed. Dressed head-to-toe in sleek black leather, her long hair spilled out of her hood. She was too pretty, too clean to belong to this world, but it was the way she walked that made the men hide from her. Say what you want about Tabitha Galavan, the woman strutted like a tiger.

Tabitha paid the men no mind, keeping up her brutal walking pace. They weren’t a threat to her; no one around here was. Besides, she was running late. She had to get to Cherry’s soon. She had to save him. The man she loved was still inside the beast.

It astounded her how much the lug meant to her. At first, it had been a play. She was the sister of the king of Gotham, but as is so often the case, Theo’s pride came before his fall. With Penguin on the run, Tabitha needed to ingratiate herself with a powerful leader. She knew herself too well to trust the GCPD or any of Gotham’s upper crust. Ex-mayor Aubrey James was a total pushover. Gordon was likely the man who killed her brother, so she couldn’t trust him at all. No, Tabitha had to find someone who didn’t shy away from brutality. The current leader of the underworld was the obvious choice, and besides, she and Butch had a history. 

Their connection was instant and intense. Tabitha could see the animal vitality within him from the moment she broke him from his conditioning. And oh, did she love it. Finally, she had found someone sane whose intensity matched her own. Barbara was cute, but she was too unpredictable for a lasting relationship. 

And despite all appearances, he was sweet. One day, he had given her a rose. Said it reminded him of her, thorny and sharp but still beautiful. Tabitha wasn’t sure she bought into the ‘thorny beauty’ thing, but she saved the rose. It was in her wallet, flattened from the pressure of a couple of books she’d stolen or collected across the years. No one had ever given her a rose before.

Another sharp left turn and Tabitha was in the alley leading to the entrance of Cherry’s. She stopped underneath the neon sign, letting her hood fall back. Something welled up inside her, threatening to spill over as her face was bathed in the red light.

“Come on, Tabby,” she muttered to herself. “It’s just Butch. You’ve broken him out of conditioning before. No problem.” She took a breath to steel herself and pushed open the door to the fight club.

The club was totally empty. Tabitha had waited until all of the Doc’s people went to a meeting. It was the only way to ensure she could lay her trap. 

She and Butch had a gramophone, back when he was ruling the underworld. One night, after a few too many whiskeys, Butch had put on a record. He has a surprisingly good voice, for such a brute. Tabitha hadn’t been drunk enough, but her demand for him to turn the music off died on her lips when she turned around. Butch was singing along, swaying to the beat with his eyes squeezed shut in passionate performance. He was so rarely unguarded that Tabby couldn’t find it within herself to yell at him. His voice. Smooth as velvet and as rich as chocolate.

Tabitha was entranced. Usually she hated listening to music. It seemed like a waste of time, but now? Listening to her lover sing to Sinatra was her new favorite weekly activity. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t encourage him to drink more over the next few months just so she could hear him singing.

Tabby reached into the bag and pulled out the dusty old record of a kid’s song from decades ago. She had to pay fifteen bucks at the music store for it. It had taken all of her self-control to not gut the clerk for his insolence. She didn’t know why this was the song Butch named himself after, but if it could get his attention through his swamp-addled mind then she could care less.

She carefully set the record down, feeling it slot into place. Great, part one completed. The sturdy duffle bag still had a couple of items in it, though. She knelt and pulled the gas mask and canister from her duffle and kicked it behind a crate. Couldn’t let the beast guess her plans, after all. Even if he seemed exceedingly stupid. She found a place to hide until Butch was alone and settled down for the long haul.

 

It took about an hour for everyone to come back to Cherry’s smelling of smoke and brimming with nervous energy. Tabitha shook herself out of her bored stupor where she had settled. She had been back there long enough that her limbs were stiff and sore with disuse. As she came back to herself, a loud voice grated on her nerves. It was the verdant disaster: Edward Nygma. Penguin wasn’t the only criminal in Gotham who refused to call him Riddler.

Oh, he wasn’t just ranting like the egotist he was; Nygma was shouting with Thompkins about an attack. Her hands tightened on the canister. Someday she would get her revenge on that skinny twerp for cutting off her hand and torturing her Butch. But she was going to have to be patient for a little while longer. It would be so much more satisfying to kill him when she had Butch back by her side.

Tabitha forced herself to listen to the argument. It sounded like the Doc was winning. Good for her. Though, Tabitha would root for anyone who was arguing with Nygma. Thompkins stormed out of the room, and the hidden Tabby pushed herself to her feet. Nygma sounded unhinged. She was betting on the likelihood of Nygma leaving to go deal with his... issues. That would leave the beast behind. She was going to get him back.

She gently placed the needle on the record, hearing the creepy children’s voices fill the empty room. Ducking behind the doorway, Tabitha pulled the gas mask over her face. She couldn’t afford to knock herself out as well as the swamp monster. Sure enough, the beast shuffled into view. 

Tabitha shuddered to look at him. He looked so wrong. Too pale, with grey veins bulging from under his ashen skin. The look in his eyes was almost childlike. Whatever the cursed swamp had done to him had apparently wiped his memories so he was experiencing everything for the first time again, but Tabby didn’t care about that. He was still her Butch, just hiding underneath the beast Grundy.

The beast stood in front of the gramophone, tilting his head in confusion. The metallic clank of the knockout gas rolling into the room drew his attention. Beast was down in a manner of seconds, and Tabitha was able to stride into the room unseen. She could see the words form on his lips before he dropped: pretty lady. She knelt next to his unconscious body, gauging how best to move him. The gas had dissipated enough that she could peel off the mask and breathe the air. Before she realized what she was doing, Tabby stroked his hair. Despite his appearance, she still felt champagne bubbles of joy when she looked down at him.

“I’m here, Butch. I’m going to bring you back to me, I promise. This will all be fixed. You’ll be free of this curse.” She kissed him tenderly, reminded of old stories of true love’s kiss saving the day. Tabitha knew better. There was no way to cure Butch with a mere kiss. She was the heroine of this fairy tale, and she was going to take her fate into her own hands. She picked Butch’s upper body off the ground, dragging him onto a cart for moving crates.

The warehouse she was using for her staging room was close by. With only a little bit of effort, she slid Butch off of the cart and struggled him into a chair. She tied him down, hoping that there was some sliver of her lover inside of that thick skull. If not, well, a girl’s got to have a backup plan. A whole table was arranged with all sorts of tools, but Tabby knew she would only use the lead pipe. It was a head injury that brought Butch back to her- it would probably work again. 

Now all she had to do was wait for the beast to wake up.


End file.
